Computerized social networks provide a means of interaction among computer users through communities they build over time to share interests, activities and business connections.
Many people may have accounts in multiple social networks. Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services, such as MySpace or Facebook. The process of collecting the content is often performed by a social network aggregator. A social network aggregator gathers information and stores it in a single location. This may help a user consolidate multiple social networking profiles into one profile. Various aggregation services provide tools or widgets to allow users to consolidate messages, track friends, combine bookmarks, search across multiple social networking sites, read rich site summary (RSS) feeds for multiple social networks, see when their name is mentioned on various sites, access their profiles from a single interface, provide “lifestreams”, etc. Social network aggregation services attempt to organize or simplify a user's social networking experience by inter-connecting multiple social network accounts assigned to the same person.
However, there may be security risks involved in having automatic synchronization of message posting across multiple social networks. There are plugins or aggregation programs that can bridge among multiple social networks so that when a user posts a message on one social network, the same message can be automatically posted in other authorized social networks. For example, if one account were to be hacked, the hacker may be able to control the other social media accounts assigned to the same user. As such, messages that are posted by the hacker may automatically be populated across multiple social networks owned by the same user and the user may not even be aware that any of their social media accounts have been hacked. Therefore, it may be advantageous, among other things, to provide enhanced security across shared accounts in social networks.